“Rowan, where are you? My pussy is wet and waiting.”
Cringing, I pull the phone from my ear and peer down to confirm the whiney voice on the end of the line is Samantha.
She’s going to be a nightmare through this fucking process.
Refusing to deal with her selfish shit right now, I hang up and block her number for the time being. Dick move I’m sure, but I don’t a give fuck.
Emma may not be my choice, but someone’s well past their place snatching her after she was officially pinned.
We pull up outside the Fraternitas, and a large frame is waiting- Thomas. Of course he’d forego recovery to ensure the search for his charge is handled correctly.
Doors snap open, and the five of us exit from the blacked-out Chevy Suburban.
“I’ve already been briefed on the situation. I’ll have everyone’s balls who was on duty tonight for this clusterfuck of fuck ups,” Thomas states. He appears composed, but the rigid set of his jaw and the focus in his eyes bring his anger at the situation into complete focus. He’s pissed- livid. If he wasn’t a consummate professional, he’d probably be flipping shit. This has to remind him too much of her-
Tegan.
“Not if I have them first,” August mumbles as we head for the door.
The sound of a throat clearing shifts our attention to Sebastian. He loosens his bowtie and interjects, “Let’s just get the spitfire home, and we can Bobbit everyone who deserves it after she’s safe.”
“No, there will be carnage long before Emma’s return. Lydia will be the first to taste my blade, and I’m certain she won’t be the last to lose their entrails before my angel’s home,” Karl huffs, picking something invisible from his teeth with Lola.
None of us bother correcting him as we walk through the halls because he’s right. The streets will be lined with bodies before this is all over.
“Damn fucking right there will be,” August agrees, pacing the floor, unsure what to do with all his restless energy.
Running his hands through his wheat-colored waves, Sebastian states, “Wy, sit down so we can plan.”
Ignoring Sebastian, August strides toward the bar instead, banging and slamming things in his effort to make a drink. Amber liquid sloshes the sides of the glass as he throws it back.
“You don’t fuck with the queen on the board unless you know you have checkmate,” he grunts, finally relenting and takes a seat around the table.
Someone made a significant tactical error in taking Emma. As incorrect of choice I know she’d be as our wife, she’s still a Selected, which awards her certain protections.
Liam pushes some buttons on his phone, and a panoramic screen comes down from the ceiling, lighting up once it reaches its final spot.
“Here’s what we know. Lydia was contacted shortly before Emma’s arrival,” Liam begins, and Karl immediately cuts him off.
“Are you trying to tell me Emma’s arrival was known, and her kidnapping was planned long before she even moved here?”
Pulling up an email exchange between Lydia and someone, Liam explains, “We had some idea Emma was connected to what’s happening because of the packages she’s been receiving and the attempted kidnapping from school.”
He shows the timeline of messages between Lydia and someone she addressed as A.
“The problem we are working on is linking the timing. Did her arrival start this, or was this always in the works? It seems, at least at this moment, it was planned,” he finishes, turning his gaze from the screen to us at the table.
I knew something about her appearance here didn’t sit right. Liam and I have been saying this all along. The timing was just too coincidental. I want to feel vindicated in this, but she doesn’t appear to be the enemy- more like someone caught in a war not of her making.
“The real question is, did Lydia tell them of her arrival, or did Lydia take this position because she moved here?” Sebastian asks.
“Something I’m looking forward to finding the answer to. Where is the bitch?” Karl shouts, not as interested in the backstory. He wants to peel the answers from her flesh.
“We’re still not sure. We know she didn’t leave with the van because she was seen entering the estate after letting the van out. But with the camera feed on a loop, there’s no telling where and when she actually left,” Liam says.
Clearing his throat, Thomas draws our attention in his direction. “Her house was empty by the time my team arrived. Either
Miss Givens moved her belongings ahead of tonight’s plan, or she never had anything there. Liam, please pull up the file I just airdropped to you.”
My eyes bulge at what comes on the screen. “What the fuck?” I snap, my head looking back and forth between what I see and Thomas. “I thought you said you didn’t find Lydia?”
Standing, Thomas walks to the screen, “Well, we did and we didn’t,” he says, pointing to the body, or what’s left of it, on the metal slab.
“This is Lydia Givens. The real Lydia Givens. She’s been dead for weeks.”
There on the screen is an identical-looking Lydia, or what’s left of her. Her graying skin shows the level of decay setting in. Her throat slashed.
“Are you telling me Lydia isn’t actually Lydia?”
“It would appear Lydia Givens was murdered weeks ago, and Madeline Rutherford took her place, pretending to be Miss Givens since Emma’s arrival. We don’t have all the details, but it explains why we had initial issues locating Miss Givens.”
Our fathers will flip their shit when they find out we had a mole.
As if my thoughts summoned them, in walks Mr. Grant, Mr. Washington, Mr. Jefferson, and my father.
My dad steps forward, eyes filled with fury, but his mask is fully set in place. Whatever he’s about to say, he doesn’t want to. With Emma being taken and the news of the mole, his hand is being forced.
“Boys, with the information we’ve just been given, it’s time we fill you in on a few things.”
EMMA
A throbbing in my skull slowly wakes me. Damn. What the hell was in that champagne?
I thought expensive shit was supposed to hit differently?
My eyelids feel like they’re sewn shut.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.